A Tour Around Cassiopeia

[Knight of Clear Skies]

A few more images from the 23rd & 24th, hope you like them.

Here's a wide view centered on Cassiopeia taken with an old Car-Zeiss 35mm lens at f5.6. (Modded Canon 100D. 12x210 second subs, 42 minutes total.)

One advantage of the diffraction spikes is that it makes the primary stars of the constellation stand out, follow the spiky stars to the middle to trace out the 'W' of Cassiopeia. The large nebula at the top is NGC7822. The Pacman is just visible in the middle, and the Heart & Soul and Double Cluster are at bottom left.

Here's a closer view of the centre with my 135mm f3.5 Super-Takumar at f4.5. (~19x150 second subs, ~47 minutes total.) As well as the Pacman there is a little nebulosity showing around γ Cas. The largest cluster at lower middle is the Dragonfly, with a tiny but bright nebula down and to the left of it - I wonder if it's a planetary? I can't see anything there on Stellarium.

Here's NGC 7822 with the same lens. (~26x135 second subs, ~58 minutes total.)

Finally, here's the Heart & Soul with the Double Cluster that I took at the end of August using the same lens but wide open at f3.5 (15x120 second subs, 30 minutes). The star shapes aren't quite so good but somehow I've managed to get better star colours from it than in the shots above, possibly because at f3.5 I have more signal to play with despite the shorter exposure time.

[kenny k]

Very nice Knight of clear skies.

Love these widefield images,just got myself a Cannon 60da for this very purpose.Just need a decent lens now.

Thanks for sharing.

Kenny

[Space Ranger]

Fabulous images Knight of Clear Skies - I like the widefield then zoom in approach.

There's certainly plenty of interesting objects to see in that part of the sky and you've captured them beautifully.

[Mr Spock]

Lovely widefield views. I'd like to see more like this.

[Pete Presland]

incredible amount of stars!

[symesie04]

Cracking stuff. Nice images and nice narration.

[MiguelMJr]

Real nice. I my just have to get myself a DSLR and a lens or two.

Miguel

[C7tsj]

Fantastic images Knight.

[bluegiraffe]

Wow, gorgeous images! Thanks for sharing :-)

[robbie c]

Stunning images Knight well done 

[bogdog]

great images

[drmum]

I love these images. I especially like the diffraction effect where you can pick out the main stars in Cas; not easy where there are SO MANY STARS!

Thank you for sharing.

[Psychobilly]

Cracking set f images and a nice read... as you and others have said the diffraction spikes definitely help pick out the main constellation stars in these "busy" images

Can't really fault the results from the older Glass and superb VFM  

Peter...

[starman1969]

Lovely images. Thanks for sharing.